wow.. are you guys serious? Have any of you driven an X for more than 1 mile around the dealership? Comparing the two seems a little strange to me. The X is like a brick compared to the Trooper. Remember, you have to drive on pavement to get to most off-roading sites. As far as off-road goes I have to agree w/ Paisan in ground clearance being measured at your lowest point (diffy, tranny, etc.). Both vehicles can be modified (Calmini) so I'm thinking room, power and luxury with the Trooper over cramped interior, weezing motor and a ride reminiscent of a CJ-5 w/ the X.

Has anyone significant experience driving both the manual and automatic grade logic TOD 2002 Troopers? I am still thinking about getting a 2002 and both are available, unfortunately a few minutes test drive is not the same as living with a Trooper. I like the fun of a manual, but I like TOD and grade logic too. What MPG difference should I expect comparing the 2002 manual to a 2002 automatic? (I know the sticker is the same, but I think that is because Isuzu did not want to pay to have the MPG study done twice) I get 15 to 17 MPG around town and 18 to 20 MPG highway with my 1995.5 manual. What are the chances I get one of those that I occationally hear about on this discussion that gets 13 MPG? I would never hear the end of it if I "upgraded" to a worse gas guzzler.

I really wish they had the Diesel Trooper for 2002, my wife would let me pay full price to get the better MPG.

Handling: Troopers have better handling than any SUV with 90 cubic feet of cargo capacity or 8 seats (aftermarket third row). Only the Toyota Land Cruiser might handle as well or a little better with about the same cargo and passenger capacity, but that costs twice as much and sucks down a lot more fuel and it still far from a sports car. What other large SUVs have you heard handle better than Trooper? Can anyone compare the handling of the Yukon/Tahoe to the Trooper? I can get the GM employee discount and as an added bonus the dealer warrantee repair shop will get to know me very well.

The Xterra is a pickup truck conversion. It's the Frontier with a body on the back. Kind of like the 4Runner is. It is not at all like the Pathfinder, which is not body-on-frame constructed.

I guess part of the Xterra's ground clearance advantage could be because its rear diffy is smaller. :-0 I still hold that at certain aspects of off roading, like rock crawling, it would be the better vehicle.

All that said, I bought the Trooper and love it.

Regarding the manual versus automatic issue, the automatic will pay for itself at resale time, even if you drive it almost forever.

I look at the Xterra as similar to my old 88 Pathfinder. Body on frame, 3.0 liter engine (or thereabouts), automatic hubs. Mechanically it is relatively old-school for an SUV, which I actually see as a good thing. Today's Pathfinder is a luxury unibody not for serious off-road use.

I haven't driven an Xterra, or even sat in one, but would consider one if in the market. But it won't beat the Trooper in size and interior volume for the dollar, not even close.

In terms of off-road capability, these are both pretty capable vehicles, I wouldn't sweat it either way.

finding those chassis drawings posted on this board a month or two back. Someone had scanned pictures out of a Trooper Maintenance Manual and set up a link to look at them. The ones I'm particularly interested in were of the chassis, drive train, front end suspension and rear suspension. Anybody know where those are?? About what message # they were posted with??Happy Trooping!!

A listener phoned in to CLICK & CLACK with a problem with her Trooper and they couldn't stop laughing. It sounded like the Trooper could be compared to a YUGO in the reliability department. Said they were expensive to repair and never last 100,000 miles.

Click & Clack were hard her 1986 (I think) Trooper. They discussed mostly problems with the engine. They said they didn't know about the new Trooper. In fact, I think they told her to go by a new Trooper and that she'd be love it.

As usual, they were funny and disrespectful of anything that wasn't Toyota or Honda.

Guys ... I was at a dealer on Sunday, looking at the HSV GTS. I had a wander over to one of the latest Jackaroos and realised that Australia doesn't get the same V6 setup as North America.

On Mike's web site, I noticed a Trooper that had been pulled out of water on a recent trip, that the dressing on the top of the inlet manifolds is different to ours and that there is no throttle cable. With my 2000 Monterey, the top of the inlet manifolds are visible and we have a throttle cable. However, it was only last Sunday that I noticed the new V6 models are the same as mine.

After a decade or two, if the plastic fender flairs get to looking bad, I wonder if they could be removed and the metal fenders made to look nice without the plastic. I hope the fenders are just held on with double side sticky tape and when the plastic is dead they just fall off leaving nice clean metal fenders.

Since SLX = Trooper I'm sure any SLX owner would not have a problem if they brought the car into Isuzu dealership. What do you guys think would happen if I took the Trooper to an Acura dealership for some minor maintenance or other non-warranty repair? Has anyone tried to do it successfully? With the shrinking Isuzu dealer network it'd be good to find out. Thanks!

I took off and reinstalled a rear flare over a year ago on a 1999 Trooper. IIRC there were 1 or 2 bolts.However there was also a series of fasteners that appeared to be riveted (or glued?) in place. In any event, I couldn't figure out how to simply release them. Instead, I drilled the center of them out and the trim piece pulled off. I guess I could have put pop-rivets back in the drilled fastener locations. However, I choose to go back with bolts. Now, if I want to remove the trim I can easily do it with a wrench as all the fasteners have bolt heads.